


Never Let Them Die

by LadyBrooke



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-16 12:37:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10571457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBrooke/pseuds/LadyBrooke
Summary: Orodreth will never let his wife and children die, even if he has to manipulate everything to go his way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Taming the Muse on Dreamwidth, prompt Outcast.

Orodreth never fit in with the rest of his family. Even Finrod the peacemaker was better at swordplay than he was, and the rest of them fought as though they had been born to never do anything but.

In many ways, he would have been able to better pass himself off as a member of Fëanor’s family, if it had not been for his hair. They were blessed with the same skill in words (and blackmail, and while nobody would ever accuse Maglor or Orodreth of it, the same skill in finding secrets and then backstabbing the people they needed to).

But he couldn’t pass himself off as one of them, and he couldn’t act out from what his own family said without there being consequences. So he hid what he could, and pretended to not see the amused look on Fingon’s face or the concerned look on Turgon’s face (and it would be those two, the skilled politicians of the House of Fingolfin who would catch him), as he molded events to fit what he needed them to for his own needs. There was never going to be a day he could relax, at the rate these things were going now, but he didn’t really need to.

After all, did it matter if he was an outcast, if he was the only one from his family who knew the true extent of it? Finrod would never question him, nor Aegnor and Angrod – Galadriel might, one day, but she was busy with her own schemes at the moment.

It couldn’t matter. It didn’t matter. He had to do this, because he wasn’t talented like they were. And he had his new wife to think of, and they were going to have children one day, he had enough foresight to see that. Those children needed to be safe, she needed to be safe, and there was no way he could see other than staying behind the scenes and manipulating things that he could find to do that.

His siblings would bring about their own doom, as Argon had brought his. And the sons of Fëanor would outlast them, because the ones to last the longest were the ones who could convince others of what they were doing. And Orodreth was confined by the role he played, because he couldn’t – wouldn’t – undermine his own brothers and sister (at least unless they did something that would jeopardize his chosen family, because he was never going to let his wife die for his sibling’s ideas).

If anyone found out and told on him, he was done. The whispers around the court was that only the kinslayers had so little honor as to sulk behind doors and convince others to do their work for them.

Orodreth thought his cousins were right to do that – why die yourself if you could convince someone else to do it for you? And they had suffered anyways, with Maedhros’ cries still echoing in his ears from when he was brought back to camp.

He was not going to stand aside and let his family die, sword or not.


End file.
